


Pity the witch

by bloodandcream



Category: Supernatural
Genre: coda 5.07, emotions and shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream/pseuds/bloodandcream
Summary: “Who are they?”Shaking his head, Patrick tells him, “Just her. Just one. Lia’s daughter.”“You have a kid?”





	

Sam has a prescription for doxycycline in his pocket and the address of the nearest pharmacy on his cell phone. He mills around the aisles after dropping off the script, wondering if there was something to help with the…. topical problems, until the antibiotic could take care of it for good.

God, he got gonorrhea from a witch. He’s never going to hear the end of this from Dean.

At least Dean is ok, and Bobby. Everyone is back at the correct age. It’s a - mostly - successful hunt.

Half a block down from the pharmacy is a bar. With a half hour to an hour expected wait, Sam decides to grab a beer. The cheerful overhead music and bright fluorescent lights of the corner pharmacy are not helping his mood. He deserves a drink in peace.

Is it fucked up that Sam thought it was kind of nice to see Dean old? He doesn’t think he’ll ever get the chance to see his brother age, or to reach old age himself. They’re never going to get there, and they definitely aren’t going to get there together.

Not like it’s a great time having Dean age fifty years in the span of a few minutes. But now Sam knows what it looks like and it’s weirdly nice.

Bobby and Dean expect him back soon.

Just one beer.

It’s not the same bar the witch had been haunting, in fact it’s clear across town, yet for all the bars in the city Sam finds a familiar profile bent over a glass of whiskey sitting at the corner of the bar.

He’s ready to turn tail and run - it has been a long enough few days and Sam is still pissed off, he does not have the temper for this.

Watery brown eyes turn on him and Patrick almost looks startled, straightens his posture, and the bar is small enough that even just inside the door Sam is a few feet away from him.

“Sam, fancy seeing you here.”

Frowning, awkward, Sam turns sideways between him and the door. “I was just… on my way out.”

“No, you weren’t.”

Patrick sips his whiskey and the absent bartender makes an appearance to glance between them, available if Sam wants to order.

“Ah, don’t look so cross with me,” Patrick tells him. “Sit, have a beer.”

Patrick sets a ten on the bar and the bartender fulfills his duty then retreats to a distant corner.

“I have every reason to be cross with you.”

Sam still sits down on the affixed stool and curls a hand around the cool beer bottle.

“You won your game, got your brother’s years back.”

The bright charm is missing and there’s something morose, almost cruel in his tone.

Sam takes a sip of his beer and shifts uncomfortably because he’s still got an STD that itches. Checking his watch, he tries to surreptitiously shift his jeans. 

“Oh, that’s right,” Pat nods and waves a hand at him.

The itch disappears.

“Did you just…”

“Take away your clap? Witchcraft is more effective than modern medicine.”

Sam glowers. “You gave it to me in the first place.”

Patrick shrugs and returns to his drink. There’s a bottle of Jameson’s left on the bar within reach and he refills his own glass. On the aged wood surface of the bar there’s a necklace, an oval locket on a chain, and Patrick’s hand returns to it again and again, touching fleetingly before retreating.

Belatedly, Sam realizes that Patrick is alone.

“Where’s the other witch?”

Tensing, Patrick sets his glass down and turns to face Sam. “Lia? You mean my companion.”

He thinks it sounds like threat in Patrick’s voice and Sam is suddenly worried for the other witch, because she betrayed Patrick, she gave the spell over and Sam is so stupid, he shouldn’t have just left her. “If you hurt her-“

The glare that Patrick levels at him stops Sam in his tracks.

“She wanted to play a hand. Bit sentimental like that.”

And that was it. Wasn’t it. She wanted to trade her own life in too, not just Patrick’s; she wanted to be done with all of it so why would everything just go back to the way it was for the two witches once the hunters were gone.

Sam’s sad to realize. “She didn’t want to make it.”

“Threw everything away on a shite hand.”

Picking the locket up, Patrick sinks slightly from his composed posture into a slump. The chain slips to dangle from his palm as he flicks it open. There are two pictures inside, and Sam leans a little closer to see. One is a young baby, one an old lady, the photographs black and white, a little wrinkled, a little spotted. Sam can’t help his curiosity.

“Who are they?”

Shaking his head, Patrick tells him, “Just her. Just one. Lia’s daughter.”

“You have a kid?”

He doesn’t mean to sound so incredulous, witches can have kids too, they can have families.

“No.” Patrick snaps the locket shut and drops it back on the bar. “She was Lia’s, before Lia was mine.”

Sam doesn’t always think of the broader picture, it hurts to think of the holes left behind by some of the more human things that they kill. But then there’s Lia and Patrick, a child who was only hers, a near immortal witch left to watch her family age and die without her. So she played her hand. And now there’s only Patrick, left to face down another century alone.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, inadequate.

“Why?”

“It’s hard, losing someone.”

“And what do you know?” Patrick demands.

“A few things. I know about people being ready to check out, and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”

Sipping his whiskey, Patrick watches Sam over the rim.

Sam’s eyes have adjusted enough to the dim interior from outside that he can see better, the tired bruises under Patrick’s eyes and the wetness still on the lashes, the red coloring his cheeks.

They’re essentially leaving a hunt unfinished. Bobby and Dean got their years back. They didn’t gank the witch. They tucked tail and called it even, they quit. Nine hundred years. Sam can’t help wondering if Patrick is exactly nine hundred or if he’s lost track somewhere.

“You know, you’re a hard one to read,” Patrick studies him and the gaze is unnervingly intense, “You come across an open book. But it’s just a front, isn’t it?”

“Maybe you’re not as good at reading people as you think.”

Sam’s used to being on the defensive. It’s easier to give partial answers and let people think they have the whole of it.

Picking up the locket, Patrick slips it into his pocket and refills his whiskey. Resting his elbows on the bar, he runs a hand through his hair and curls quietly on himself. Sam senses that it’s the end of the conversation, and he leaves his half empty beer on the bar when he stands to go. Watching the defeated lines of Patrick, drooping, Sam realizes something.

He pities the witch.


End file.
